


The Garden of Eden

by elusive_ellipsis



Series: Half-Decent Omens [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel of the Eastern Gate (Good Omens), Crowley and Aziraphale's First Meeting (Good Omens), Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens), The Garden of Eden (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24340552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elusive_ellipsis/pseuds/elusive_ellipsis
Summary: An alternative version of the scene in the Garden of Eden from Good Omens, had it been written late at night in 2020 and every previous draft had crashed and burned.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Half-Decent Omens [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757263
Kudos: 13





	The Garden of Eden

It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But God hadn't really had anything to do for a while so there was a storm approaching. It was a big one, which was probably a good idea because you want to introduce a cool new concept at its best.

Above the garden of Eden which was less of a garden and more of a quite big cage - pretty, but y'know - above it stood an angel, looking at the oncoming rain.

"I'm sorry," he said politely, and then awkwardly repeated it because his voice had been drowned out by thunder; "what was it you were saying? Something about red baboons?"

The demon standing next to him, whose name was Crawley (although he wasn't too keen on it), sighed.

"I said, well that - " _CRACK-BOOM_. He made a face, which was a new one. Not just on him. A face no one had ever made before, because they'd all been too busy being happy or treacherous to be disgruntled. "Nevermind."

The angel opened his mouth as if to press the point, but decided against it. He held out his hand for the demon to shake.

"I'm Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern gate. Awful weather, isn't it?"

Crawley simply stared.

"Quite nice, I think," said the serpent of Eden, who had spent most of his notable recent existence in the fiery pits of Hell, where something as peaceful as rain certainly didn't exist. Still staring at the hand, which he was a little wary of given he'd acquired his own limbs and _jointed bits_ scarce moments before, he said, "Crawley. Demon. At your adversity."

Aziraphale smiled, slightly cautiously, the way one might if one were trying to befriend a snake. Which was rather suitable, given that his intention was to make the acquaintance of the human-shaped being by his side who had, until very recently, been a serpent himself.

"So, er, what brings you up here? From, you know," he lowered his voice, " _down below_."

Crawley made another new face. This one wasn't quite so negative. "They sent me up to make some trouble. D'you think I've done enough of that?"

Aziraphale looked across to the horizon, where one could just make out the shape of two humans, recently kicked out of the garden above which the two of them stood. "I think, perhaps, you might have, yes. So you - you were the one with the apple?"

Crawley followed his gaze, and smirked slightly at the blazing weapon held in Adam's hand.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose I was. Say, shouldn't you have a... flaming sword?"

Aziraphale looked suddenly on edge, and glanced away. "Er."

"I thought I saw you with it earlier. It was flaming like anything."

"I, uh. Well you see-" Aziraphale shot a look at Crawley which said clearly, if you had known him for, say, a few millennia; _'Don't ask, dear boy, I won't like the answer'._

Crawley completely missed it.

"Did you... I don't know... _Lose_ it?"

Aziraphale looked away from the demon's prying, serpentine eyes. "Well, I wouldn't say _lost_ , per se, more... misplaced?"

Crawley said nothing.

"Look, just don't tell head office, would you? They'll have my head for this. They might even kick me out, and I simply _can't_ go to Hell, I can't." Quickly realising who he was talking to, he began to desperately backtrack. "Not that there's anything _wrong_ with Hell, particularly, I mean, if that's your calling, then... good on you. You can't have good without bad. It's just not for me, you know?

“Adam and Eve - they looked ever so cold, and I couldn't just leave them like that. I thought it was the Good thing to do. Wouldn't you say?"

Crawley tipped his head back and to the side, not sure whether to be offended or amused. He decided to go with the latter; a decision which would pay him well for centuries to come.

"Well, you're an angel. Not exactly in your ability to be _evil_ is it?" he said sarcastically. "You don't get kicked off the edge for being _nice_ . No one with _good intentions_ goes to Hell." He bit his tongue, which flicked between his teeth.

The angel seemed satisfied with this answer. "Oh, good. I did hope so. It'd be awfully funny if I did something _evil_ , don't you think? And, well, you know what they say about good intentions... Although I'm not entirely sure that's a _they_ so much as Ezekiel from accounting. I doubt it'll catch on.

"I'm sure it's not in your ability to be good, either, so I wouldn't be too worried about that. I mean, _are_ you worried about that? Being evil is... _good_ for you, right?"

Crawley's tongue flickered back into his mouth. "Well," he said. "Demons get into a lot of trouble, doing _Good_ things. It'd definitely be bad for me if I didn't do the _wrong_ thing." He shifted his weight, and then regretted it with a wince as the bend in the middle of his left leg locked in place. The serpent expended a subtle amount of hellish power keeping his balance. No need to embarrass himself on a first encounter.

It was at this moment that the thunderstorm arrived. Aziraphale winced as his golden hair was soaked in the downpour. It curled messily and almost seemed to shine as the lightning struck. Next to his demonic accomplice, he looked as angelic as ever. Crawley, on the other hand, looked like something the cat had dragged in, in a time when there were no cats and few places to drag things, which was something of an achievement. Aziraphale's wings _wooshed_ out and he raised one to cover his new maybe-friend's head.

Crawley glanced up at this new shelter, and decided it was probably a reasonable idea to accept it. Carefully, he shuffled closer, trying to ignore all the weird sensations of muscles moving in his legs, and not doing all too well.

"Did you pick that name - Aziraphale?" Crawley asked. "Because, you see, demons pick their own names, but I'm not too sure about mine. I think it's a bit too... slithery. Do you know what I mean?"

Aziraphale hesitated. "Well you _were_ a snake," he pointed out. Carefully, he tried to remember being given his own name. He couldn't. "I think angels are created with names. It's what connects us to the Almighty, I believe. We lose them when we - ah." Tactfully, perhaps a little too late, he stopped.

Crawley, fortunately, didn't take much offence. Perhaps it was from spending so much time in the bowels of Hell, or perhaps he was simply making a friend.

"I was thinking of changing it. Although I'm not sure what to..."

"I'm sure it'll come to you soon," said the angel reassuringly. He gave the demon a heavenly smile. Crawley grimaced back.

The pair lapsed into silence for a little while.

"What's it like up there these days?" asked Crawley. He was no great conversationalist. There wasn't much to discuss in the depths of Hell save for evil deeds and the abysmal pay.

"Oh, you know," said Aziraphale airily, and then realised Crawley didn't. The angel was not particularly experienced in the social side of things either. "Well. It's still very white. Rather plain. Not that that's a bad thing, of course, simplicity allows one to concentrate on the Beauty of the Almighty and removes distraction from the, er, you know, _job_ , yes –" his furrowed expression lifted – "but it's rather nicer down here, don't you think? What with all these... _flowers_ and _animals_. It's ever so lovely, wouldn't you say?" He was looking back between them into the Garden, smiling like a sunlit cloud.

Crawley looked at it too, and sniffed. "It's certainly better than Below," he said. "Maybe I can get a permanent placement up here. That would be n- uh. Favourable." He glanced at the angel. It had been a long long time since he'd seen a smile like that. He shuffled round to face the canopy of trees below them. Impressively, he managed it. After all, hell would get on his tail (or what was it now? Knees? Heels, he decided, was a better anatomical translation) if he kept spending demonic energy on _moving_. Rather chuffed with himself, he ruffled his wings and listened to rain hitting thousands of leaves.

Behind them, the flickering light of a certain sword disappeared into the hills.

The rain was beginning to ease off now. It seemed God had gotten bored, and was off to create Their next phenomenon. Perhaps Marmite. Or shoes.

Sadly (or perhaps thankfully, depending on one's view of Marmite - and indeed shoes) it was going to be a while before either of those things came around. But since neither of the pair standing on the wall knew of these concepts, they did not lament the prolonging of their invention.

So instead they stood awkwardly side by side. Perhaps they would have done well for something to complain about. "Erm..." Aziraphale began, but stopped abruptly and stared at his feet. (Which bore no shoes.) The demon looked at him.

"What?" he asked.

"No, don't worry about it."

The former serpent narrowed his eyes.

"I want to know now."

"It's nothing," the angel insisted. "Merely my curiosity getting the better of me. I wouldn't want to cause offence."

"I'm a demon, Aziraphale. Of all the things in this universe that are going to cause me offence, you don't even make the list. What is it?"

"Do you still have wings? Because, you know, there were rumours..."

Crawley peered at him. The angel looked back, eyes wide.

The demon opened his wings, accidentally bumping Aziraphale with one. "Still have wings. Well, I definitely do. We tend not to wear them around so much, I don't think. Can't recall if that was the case Up There too..." He tucked them against his back. It would not be a good start if he knocked Aziraphale off the Very High (and in fact First Ever) wall.

Aziraphale, satisfied with this answer and the fact that he had not offended anyone, nodded and looked off into the horizon. "I do wonder what humans will get up to next. Don't you?"

Crawley shrugged. "Not my business, really. So long as they keep doing bad stuff, and I'm close enough for it to maybe be down to me so I can keep my job, they can run wild, as far as I'm concerned."

Aziraphale shot him a disapproving look, which quickly disappeared. A job was a job, after all.

"Likewise, I suppose. But, obviously, the doing _good_ , not _bad_ , because that would be wrong - well, wrong for _me_ anyway." He carefully shut his mouth and kept it closed. For a while he stared off at the horizon.

When he dared a glance at Crawley, the demon was grinning. He was, in fact, laughing. Suddenly self conscious, Aziraphale wondered what he'd done to embarrass himself. "What?" he asked, a trifle testily.

"You're just ever so good, dear angel. It's been a while since I've been around anyone who's been concerned by much other than, you know, fire, torture... general hell stuff. Evil. It's refreshing, actually, if a little disconcerting. I didn't know beings could have such undying faith in anything."

"... _dear_ angel?" said Aziraphale.

Crawley stared. Aziraphale stared back. For a moment they stood on the edge of a very steep drop into intense embarrassment. Then they silently agreed to move on without discussing it, and stood on the edge of a very steep drop into something as simple and sweet as sand or soil again. Aziraphale, however, looked somewhat more pleased. One might almost say _endeared_. But not Aziraphale. He would most definitely would not have said endeared.

"You asked me what I thought would become of humans. What do _you_ think?" asked Crawley, who had been racking his brains for a topic to move onto.

"Ah," said Aziraphale, who knew not to question the Great Plans. "Well. I should think they’ll, you know, expand a bit. Get a few more of them. Er. And then, well, who knows. Perhaps they'll start building things. Maybe even _invent_ things." He had lowered his voice for the last part. Now he spread his hands palms-down in front of him and said, hurriedly; "Best not to speculate, of course. The Almighty has plans, of course, and we shall all see in due time."

"Have you ever met Them?" said Crawley.

"The Almighty?"

"That's the one."

Aziraphale hesitated. He wrung his hands a little.

"Well I haven't - I don't think I've actually - well, you know. We've all been given _messages_ , of course. I've heard the Metatron has some meetings. But..." He grimaced, very briefly. "No, I don't believe I have."

"And you still follow Them? I mean, Satan's ideas are a bit... out there, at times, but at least I can tell him that to his face. Not that I would - I mean, he's God's former favourite son, still pretty powerful, but... you've really never met your God?"

Aziraphale looked shocked. "Of course I still follow them!" he cried. "I'm an _angel_ . It's what we do. Otherwise we - " He stopped; composed himself. "One does not have to have _seen_ God to have faith in Them. Knowing that Their powers are at work for the good of creation is more than enough." He smiled. "Carrying out Their wishes is truly an honour." Crawley's face faded his smile like sunlight on paint. (Not that paint had been invented yet. Or anything upon which one would wish to apply paint. Or the materials needed to make such things.)

"What?" he said again, wondering for the first time if it was really a good idea to be talking to a demon.

Crawley's face, which had consisted mostly of a smile, topped with a glint in the eyes, shifted into something more contained.

"If you say so," he said carefully.

Aziraphale knew quite well that Crawley wasn't convinced, but decided to leave it there. The last thing he wanted was to make himself look like a pious fool in front of the demon who'd provided him with the best conversation he'd had since Lucifer was still in Heaven and trying to recruit angels. (He'd had an hour-long discussion with the former angel about the angelic clothing policy and they'd both left more confused than when they'd started.)

Crawley grinned. "Never mind," he said. It happened that he was also enjoying this. It was an interesting conversation, and it was nice not having to inject dark undertones into his every word in the company of others who did the same, but _badly_. Hell held a great deal of demons who weren't actually very good at being demonic. Their skills lay more in hissing, growling or yelling (or a combination thereof) at other demonic creatures and occasionally punching things. They didn't quite have the capacity for evil undertones.

Similarly, Aziraphale was appreciative of an opportunity to talk without concerning himself with appearing suitably angelic. Especially since most angels took _angelic_ to mean _insufferably smug_.

"You don't think that the, er... Powers That Be can see us having this conversation, do you?" asked the angel, glancing up at the sky as if on the lookout for stray lightning beams with which he might be smote.

Crawley took half a step forward and looked at the ground beneath him as if Satan might be peering up. He shrugged. "Nah. If they did - or if they cared - they'd probably have interrupted by now." (He would have said, _"It's not like they have CCTV in the clouds,"_ but cameras did not exist yet.) (And they probably would have had CCTV in the clouds given the chance.)

Aziraphale relaxed a little at this, but didn't lower his gaze from the sky for another minute or two.

"I should probably be guarding the Eastern Gate. I mean, that is my job, and I know there isn't anyone there anymore, but if Michael catches me away from post -"

"It'll be fine, angel," said Crawley. "Stop fretting. Anyone would think you were ashamed to be in the company of a demon."

Aziraphale stuttered a little, and made a face. One might, if they were being generous, call it a _pout_ , but it was like calling a dinosaur a bird. "And indeed I should be. You are a demon; I am an angel. I should be ashamed." It sounded almost as if he was trying to convince himself.

"I won't tell anyone if you don't," said Crawley with a kind of casual, confident air that seemed as if he should be smoking a cigar in someone's drawing room in nineteenth century England. None of these things existed, of course, so he settled for a grin. "Come on, admit it. This is the most fun you've had in ages."

Aziraphale gave him a look that said _'Scandalous!'_ "Absolutely not! Fun? With a _demon_?" He shook his head. "Absolutely not."

Crawley, who had invented it, noticed the sarcasm in Aziraphale's voice. Aziraphale didn't.

"Well, I best be off then," said Crawley, stepping a little to the side so he didn't knock Aziraphale over as he opened his wings, and turning away so the angel couldn't see his delight at taunting him. "I wouldn't want to continue to shame you."

"Oh, no, I didn't - " said Aziraphale, stepping after him and moving his wing (which had remained over Crawley all this time and had begun to ache) so that the last drizzles of rain were exposed to Crawley's skin, where they sizzled and wished they'd never fallen from the sky. Then he stopped and tucked his wings with a frown. Crawley paused on the edge of the wall, and rocked on his heels (an impressive manoeuvre; he was proud of himself), trying and failing to contain a grin. Aziraphale made a pout that was a great deal more evolved, and crossed his arms.

"Tricking an angel is a sin, you know," he said.

"Sins are my specialty, you know," the demon replied. "Being a demon and all. I take it you've decided you can handle that? Because I can still fly off if you'd rather."

He flapped his wings for emphasis, ruffling Aziraphale's hair and shifting his expression from sulky to plain irritated.

"Come on, there's no need to look like that. I was only trying to have some fun."

"You have a strange definition of fun, Crawley."

"And you don't appear to understand the concept at all. We'll have to fix that if we keep meeting like this."

"Are we going to keep meeting like this?"

"Only if you like." The demon held out his hand. "Truce?"

The angel eyed the hand as if it might grow a face and speak in Gabriel's voice. For a moment, he actually considered shaking.

"I think that's hardly a good idea," he said with a touch of regret. "We are on opposite sides, after all. A truce would be going against _both_ our superiors. But..." He glanced up again. "Well. I wouldn't object to the, er... occasional break from... Oh, I don’t know."

If winks had been around then (and indeed they would be soon, courtesy of future Crawley - though it was actually Aziraphale who did it first, some time around 3983 BC, due to an unfortunate fly, but Crawley who assigned it a meaning) he might have winked.

“Come on," he said, waggling his hand at the angel. "It won't go further than the two of us anyway."

Aziraphale glanced behind him quickly and up to the sky. "Put that down!" he said, batting the back of Crawley's extended hand with his own. "You can't expect an angel to trust a demon. That would be stupid."

Crawley looked at his hand, and then let it drop, apparently satisfied. The serpent smiled. "Very well."

The thunderstorm had been receding for a while now, but it was at that very moment that the sky cleared at last, and the sun broke through the clouds and shone down on the demon and the angel standing above the Garden of Eden.

**Author's Note:**

> Half the credit for this work is due to my friend Lobster, who provided approximately half the content and pretty much made this happen in the first place.


End file.
